On Xia Xiaowan's Art

There is a kind of painting, which we can call "painting about painting", which means that artists think about the essence and limitations of painting through these works-not words. Xia Xiaowan's "Space Painting" belongs to this kind of work, because it is neither infatuation with a certain style nor persistence with a certain concept to lead him to explore, but reflection on painting.

This series of experiments began in 2002 after being exhibited in Today Art Museum, and continues to this day. Its means is to deconstruct plane painting into images on multi-layer transparent media, and then reconstruct these "sections" into deep three-dimensional pictures. From a small area of plexiglass to a large transparent film device several meters high, from colored pencils to special glass colors, from laminated combination to layered devices, this exploration process is both technical, visual and conceptual.

The first question is: What is the "space" in Xia Xiaowan's "space painting"? The word "pictorialspace" used in art history usually refers to the fictional space constructed by artists in the picture, especially the three-dimensional space expressed by perspective and light and shadow in post-Renaissance art. In Alberti's view, due to the invention and use of these techniques, artists can turn an opaque canvas into a window to another world. In this artistic expression, the material existence of canvas disappears on the surface, but it does not disappear in essence, because it still determines the "two-dimensional" nature of the whole work. The surface of the media and the painting space are always in an interdependent and mutually restrictive negotiation relationship. The "space" in "space painting" is not only related to this traditional concept of space, but also very different. The connection is that every "space painting" still emphasizes the positive point of view and still uses perspective, light and shade techniques to construct images. However, because the canvas is replaced by transparent glass or film, the tension between the painting image and the medium is eliminated, and instead, a series of local images overlap and combine outside the picture, forming a "suspended" whole. The artist's attempt is to liberate painting from the bondage of media and create an "independent image" in three-dimensional space.

Because "space painting" is actually the deconstruction and reconstruction of two-dimensional painting, Xia Xiaowan regards it as the behavior and result of painting in space-not on a plane. Therefore, the local image on each transparent glass can be said to be a dynamic trajectory of painting behavior in three-dimensional space. This kind of dynamic painting is different from the concept of "action painting" because the final result of "action painting" is still a static self-contained composition. Xia Xiaowan prefers to imagine this process as the visualization of dance: if the trajectory of dance can be displayed continuously with a brush, the connection between painting and dance will go far beyond the mechanical capture of the dancer's instantaneous image.

Another meaning of "space painting" is the redefinition of "watching". Because of the use of multiple layers of glass, when the position of the viewer changes, the graphics also change, which is an important difference from the traditional fixed-point viewing method of painting. Xia Xiaowan explained: space, three dimensions, focus perspective and other principles. What we are talking about is actually a real-time observation graph in the sense of projection. It verifies a set of scientific principles, rather than actual human observation. Perspective is actually a scientific experiment and a result. People take a piece of glass and study it according to its projection on the plane. This is the original projection science, and the focus perspective is studied from it. But this is not a real observation, but a hypothetical premise. In other words, there is a fixed point of view. Based on this viewpoint, we can find out the perspective principle and calculate the result. Why is this not the actual observation of people? Because people have two opinions, when we cover one eye, we get a video, and when we cover the other eye, we get another video. The human video is the overlap of these two sets of videos. Therefore, it is wrong for us to understand the plane projection image technology as the same result as our visual experience. It should be said that it has verified a scientific and technological result, not human observation. Especially in art, it should be an observation that records people's actions, not a fixed observation, or even a single observation. China's paintings always have perspective, not without perspective, but why is there no focus perspective? I think the problems to be solved are different: China people have been studying people's viewing process and recording the description of viewing experience; Westerners are more like scientific experiments around imaging technology, how to calculate the focus perspective and how to analyze the spectrum, so their understanding is fixed and they will not record the time process. For him, "space painting" is both spatial and temporal, because it contains the possibility of "creation process" and "observation process". Once we understand the meaning of the latter layer, we can understand why he was overjoyed when he painted his first "space painting": I can finally see the painting with two eyes! Early Spring Map is suitable for this kind of reproduction. First of all, it is not because it is a famous landscape painting in ancient times, but because the painter Guo left us an article entitled "Lin Zhi" to discuss landscape painting. His understanding of painting is absolutely unparalleled in the world of 1 1 century, and it is still amazing even today. We can read Early Spring Map and Lin Gao Quan Zhi in pairs. In doing so, we actually regard this painting as a "painting about painting", hoping to see Guo's criticism and imagination of painting. As mentioned earlier, Xia Xiaowan's "space painting" is also created as "painting about painting". Reproduce the former in this way, and get not only the translation of images, but also the negotiation of ancient and modern painters and two painting concepts.

An important concept in Lin Zhi is to take "true landscape" as the painting object: true landscape is not a special natural phenomenon at one time and one place, but a synthesis of various mountain and river forms, four monsoon rains, distance and distance. Seeing the real mountains and rivers from a distance, the viewer sees the overall situation of the mountains and rivers; What you see up close is the texture of wood and stone. Real scenery has different characteristics in four seasons: harmonious spring, unpleasant summer, sparse autumn and gloomy winter. Painters need to see this kind of "elephant" instead of sticking to the axe chisel of static appearance, so that the pictures they create will be full of life.

The illusory clouds endow the real landscape with changing figures and expressions: the mountains in spring seem to smile faintly, the mountains in summer are dripping with green, the mountains in autumn are bright and clean as makeup, and the mountains in winter are bleak and silent. If the painter can see these "general ideas" instead of describing the details, then he can capture the aura of the landscape. There is wind and rain in the real landscape, but the viewer who enters the mountain can't find the beginning and end of the wind and rain. The real landscape changes in rain or shine, but people who enter the mountains will find no trace of disillusionment. So, Guo roared loudly: the mountain looks like this at close range, looks like this at a distance of several miles, and looks like this at a distance of more than ten miles. Every distance is different, the so-called "mountain-shaped step". The front, the side and the back of the mountain are like this. Every time I look at it, it's different. The so-called "Yamagata Face" is also called. This is the shape of a mountain and hundreds of mountains, but I don't know! Mountains are like this in spring and summer, and autumn and winter are like this. The so-called "four seasons are different" is also true. The mountains are like this, the dusk is like this, and the turbid eyes are like this. The so-called "Twilight is different" is also true. This is the intention of having hundreds of mountains at the same time, but it doesn't matter!

This is really a great mind and ambition: to integrate the shapes and postures of dozens or hundreds of mountains in a mountain, as well as their "four seasons scenery" and "twilight state" What real landscape painter wouldn't be fascinated by this? What real landscape painter doesn't want to delve into this?

The map of early spring written in 1072 is undoubtedly the result of this investigation. The whole picture is shrouded in clouds, and the mountains appear and disappear, just like a dragon without a tail at first, winding up along the central axis of the picture, turning higher and higher, turning more and more strange, and showing various positive and negative postures at the turning point. The distant peaks look in all directions; There are strange stones and jagged old trees nearby. Between rocks, waterfalls and flowing springs gurgle down, creating a pulse of vitality. The mountains in the middle scene are held hostage by two canyons. The canyon on the left is desolate, and the canyon on the right is full of vitality. Among them, high-rise buildings are vaguely like Taoyuan Wonderland. Obviously, this "true landscape" created by Guo is a cosmic image covering Yin and Yang, five elements and four seasons, and it is an organic whole full of life. The best description and analysis of it is the first chapter of Lin Zhi, Shan Shui Xun. Anyone who has studied the history of China's fine arts knows a famous saying in Shan Shui Xun: "Shan Shui is feasible, promising, tourable and livable. All the paintings here are wonderful. " Looking at Guo's "Early Spring Map", we seem to be in it, wandering in the mountains, and even talking to the fisherman, a traveler in the mountains. Xia Xiaowan's "The Picture of Early Spring" further materialized Guo's words: his audience really walked into the picture and wandered in this "space painting" with a height of 9 meters. Painting disappears from the viewer's eyes: when the viewer approaches the painting step by step, the picture in early spring changes from "promising" to "feasible", "livable" and "swimable". The binary existence of the viewer and the painting has disappeared-as Lin's "Gao Quan Zhi" said: there are storms in the real landscape, but the viewer who enters the mountain can't find the beginning and end of the storm. The real landscape changes in rain or shine, but people who enter the mountains will find no trace of disillusionment.